Another week, and another survey of individual company 401(k) retirement plan participants.
Allianz Life published their 2018 Market Perception Study last week. In that study, 37 percent of the individual company 401(k) retirement plan participants stated they were anxious about the current stock market environment.
The study also found that 57% of participants were willing to give up potential gains if they can put a portion of their 401(k) in a product that protects a portion of their retirement savings. Those numbers were up from 48% in 2015.
The number that caught my attention was that 67% of participants said they would “feel better about [their] retirement savings if [they] knew some of it was protected from market loss.”
The current generation of individual company 401(k) retirement plan participants is beginning to understand that rising stock markets provide great retirement nest egg growth. But protecting that nest egg from future losses is even better.
Robert Kiyosaki said it best. “Most people fail to realize that in life, it’s not how much money you make, it’s how much money you keep.”
Do you fall into that same category?
The survey also found that 78 percent of survey respondents with over $200,000 in current retirement plan assets stated that it was important to them to have their company 401(k) retirement plan assets invested in a product that protects them from stock market losses.
The technology exists today to preserve and protect that last several years of your company 401(k) stock market investments gains and annual contributions.
Each mutual fund option available to you on your company 401(k) retirement plan menu can be ranked by investment performance, annual costs, and current stock market risk levels.
The stock markets have been historically volatile lately. It’s likely that a mutual fund you currently own will fall in price to a “break even” level.
You might own an expensive and non-performing option on your company 401(k) retirement plan menu. Give some serious thought to selling that mutual fund and placing the proceeds into the safety of the money market account.
There is no law against selling a bad mutual fund in your company 401(k) retirement plan account. Replace it with a better one at a later date. And protect your retirement nest egg as well.
Ric Lager
Lager & Company, Inc.
